Criminal; Jury Instructions; Whether Impropriety in Trial Court's Jury
Instruction on First Degree Larceny by False Pretenses was Harmless Beyond a
Reasonable Doubt. The defendant was convicted of two counts of first
degree larceny by false pretenses for using stolen credit cards to purchase
merchandise at two different stores on multiple occasions. From September 16,
2005, through September 22, 2005, the defendant placed four separate orders totaling
$10,203.44 with Coach in Westport and six separate orders totaling $37,558.55 with
Lowe's in Newington, all charged to credit card accounts belonging to other
persons. The defendant paid another individual to pick up each of the orders
at Coach and deliver them to him at the Waldbaum's parking lot in Bridgeport. The defendant paid that same individual to pick up each of the orders at
Lowe's and deliver them to him at a garage below an apartment in Bridgeport. On appeal from his convictions, the defendant noted that one of the elements
of the crime of which he was convicted is that the value of the property obtained
must exceed $10,000. The defendant argued that, in order to have found him
guilty, the jury must have aggregated the individual purchases because no
individual charge to a credit card account was valued at more than $10,000. The
defendant further argued that he was deprived of a fair trial because the trial
court improperly failed to instruct the jury that it could aggregate the value
of the property that was stolen only if it determined that the theft was part
of one scheme or course of conduct. The Appellate Court (122 Conn. App. 20) agreed
with the defendant that the trial court's jury instruction was improper but
affirmed the defendant's convictions based on its determination that the state had
demonstrated that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The
Appellate Court noted that the defendant did not contest whether there was a
common scheme to defraud the stores or that a fraud had occurred but, rather,
argued that he was not the one who committed the crimes and that the
defendant's attorney conceded in closing argument that there was a carefully
designed plan or scheme to defraud the stores. The Appellate Court also noted
that there was overwhelming evidence that within approximately one week's time,
the defendant received more than $10,000 worth of goods from the two stores
according to an arrangement that he had made with a person who delivered the
stolen items to him. The defendant appeals from the decision to the Supreme
Court, which will consider whether the Appellate Court properly determined that
the impropriety in the jury instruction for larceny in the first degree was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.